What Dreams May Be
by ashestoashesanddusttodust
Summary: Dwarves don't dream but the taint changes things.


**What Dreams May Be**

**A Word**: Finals are over and I'm kind of wrecked. I will be recovering with a mindless marathon of Dragon Age play throughs since I will be getting Inquisition this xmas and need to remember stuff. Will continue other fics when my mind is not mush.

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Hespith dreams for the first time in her life, and she does not like it. She walks and dreams. She hides and dreams. She does all and nothing as she dreams. Watching as they all fall, one by one. To monster claws, golem fists, trapped blades, and madness.

Oh how they all fall to the madness!

The madness inside. Born from the rotten flesh they all had to eat to live this long. To reach this far after the last of the nugs died. All for nothing as their bodies shriveled and their minds twisted. The rot inside them too much to bear for most. Her men falling one by one. Unable to hold up their own shields or taking their axes against one another. Her command falling to pieces as the rest of House Branka followed.

"We had no choice, we thought," Hespith tells her dream-friend. Her only true companion now in this dark life. Filled inside with the same rot but not twisted or wasted. Not yet. Her dream-friend is like Hespith in this. The darkness speaks to them both but they refuse to bend to it's seductive call. "We did it for the good of everyone, we thought. Lies! All lies."

Lies spun from the hard lines of beloved lips that had enticed Hespith away from her own House and into this madness. Branka had been confident and reassuring even as they lost so much, so many. Her force of will strong enough to override the terror and common sense that had made them all want to abandon this quest. Oh, how they should have _run_ then. Ignored her words and her wicked mouth and just saved themselves.

And, oh, how very _wicked_ her lying mouth had been.

"There is no sacrifice that is too much," Branka had said to her at night. One leg easily parting Hespith's as her lips took break from tracing fire on her skin. Her calloused hands still moving over Hespith. Firmly enough to bring more fire, but distracted by the madness that Hespith had been too lust stupid to see as Branka whispered about the Forge while they lay tangled together. Her plans taking over a space that used to be filled with compliments and words of love. "It will be all worth it when it is mine. You will see."

The meat of the dark ones was foul no matter how they roasted it, and too late had they all realized something important. Branka herself never ate off that rotten plate. Had only sat back and watched with cold eyes as they all ate and changed. Too late, Hespith saw that the madness had taken hold of her lover in a different way when the slaughter began.

"We weren't fast enough," Hespith tells her dream-friend for the first or hundredth time. The story is the same but her dream-friend never tires of hearing it. Their presence a steady weight at her back and their understanding a balm to sooth her soul. What's left of it as the darkness yawns open inside her like a chasm. One Hespith knows she will fall to soon enough.

But not before she has found a way to satisfy the burn for vengeance in her heart. To bring some measure of retribution against the one who did this. The one who caused all these abominations and suffering. It will not be her hand that does it, but she will, she _must_ hold strong as long as she can for it.

"She gave us over to them. Gave us up to a fate worse than death," Hespith explains patiently. Laryn's screams echo in her ears still even as her bloated body births more horrors in a cycle that never stops. "Laryn, sweet Laryn, she loved her too."

Laryn had been the most ardent, the most supportive of Branka's House. Watching with devoted eyes even as her husband and son stood right behind her. Hespith had been jealous of that once. Jealous of the way the noble had been able to bend Branka's ear the way Hespith had increasingly not been able to do as they left for Bownammar. A jealousy that had stemmed from the rot spreading through her, and blinded her even more to Branka's end game.

"So blind, so foolish," Hespith moans as she curls into a hole. Laryn's grunts and squeals filling her ears as she takes shelter near the Broodmother's lair. One of the few places the hungry ones are not allowed near. "She refused to believe the betrayal. Right to the very end."

Branka had watched. Hespith had felt the weight of her mad gaze as had Laryn, finally, as her screams choked off and all hope died in her own eyes. Before she'd slowly grinned. Rising as an abomination and happily painting her lips with the blood of her husband and son.

"I can't forgive her," Hespith whispers to her dream-friend, her only friend. The only one who can and ever will _understand_. So close but still so far as Hespith closes her eyes to the corruption around her. Safe for the moment until Laryn's body swells up enough to give birth again.

The same corruption runs through her body like a vein of gold. Winding around her bones and through her muscles. Growing and pulsing even as she fights it. It's a battle every hour and Hespith can feel her boots sliding, reluctantly, under the force of it despite how hard she grits her teeth to push back. Pushing her further away from what she once was.

"You need to come soon," she sighs to the presence beside her. The shadow of who is to come and allow her, finally, to let go. To go on her own terms. "Laryn needs to rest, _I_ need to rest. Stone willing, Branka too."

Sleep is impossible but Hespith has learned to rest with her eyes partially open. Learned to fight and relax all at once. To recover enough to continue to exist. For just a little longer.

Her dreams are filled with the distant sound of boots treading the Roads and Hespith rests to a crooning song of, "Soon, soon, soon."

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End file.
